


Exit to Eternal Summer Slacking

by vvoidknight



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Family Drama, Family Issues, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Road Trips, Sexual Objectification, Violence, runaways - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9272798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvoidknight/pseuds/vvoidknight
Summary: Dave and Dirk are twins that live with their father that insists they call him Bro instead of Dad. On their 18th birthday they flee his shitty little apartment in a beat up car heading west in hopes of finding their movie star/director/producer/rapper uncle.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the wondrous avant.

Dirk turned on the radio to cover the silence of the apartment, unsettled and feeling sick. It wasn’t often that he arrived home before Dave and it was even rarer to come home to an apartment void of Bro. It was unheard of for both phenomena to occur together and Dirk found that he didn’t like it.

He switched the radio from music to the news and messed with the damaged antenna until it was kind of static-y and mostly incomprehensible. It was kind of comforting to just have background noise: nothing he had to think about, just listen to.

He wavered, considering going to the room he shared with his brother or making a pit stop in the kitchen to grab a quick snack in anticipation of hiding in his room for the rest of the night. It was a nice thought, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting away from a confrontation today. Still, he decided to stop in the kitchen anyway.

He scrounged through the cabinets and, after thoroughly checking for booby-traps, the refrigerator. Even with such a careful examination, he was unpleasantly surprised by a set of spiked chains that swung at him as soon as he eased open the door. He cursed and jumped back, letting the chains swing freely until their momentum was spent. He remained where he was standing for another moment, suddenly sure that if he were to take another step he would trigger another trap.

After a long moment, he chanced a step and, though nothing happened, remained on red alert. He stepped back over to the fridge as if walking on eggshells, eyes roaming the inside and the sides for anything, anything at all that was lying in wait.

(He vividly remembered when Bro got tired of him and Dave slamming the refrigerator door. He lined the inside of the door with snap n’ pops so that the next person to slam it – Dirk – set all of them off in a loud, sharp crack.)

Carefully, he extracted a Capri Sun for himself and checked it for tampering. Satisfied that it looked unmolested, he shoved it in his school bag, which was already full of a seemingly random assortment of items completely unrelated to school work. He glanced back into the fridge and spotted a lone bottle of apple juice shoved all the way in the back. Dave might like it, but Dirk was unsure of it. Bro had become frighteningly proficient at removing the whole lid without cracking the bits between the ring and the cap.

He decided not to risk it and he carefully closed the door. There wasn’t much else to be found in the cabinets beside a healthy stash of Doritos, but those were Bro’s. Dirk went through and looked again, but nothing mysteriously appeared in the few minutes since he’d last checked. He sighed quietly and settled for a can of cabbage from the back of one of the shelves. It was gross, but the can helpfully proclaimed the contents to be “southern style” so _maybe_ it wouldn’t be completely inedible.

Can in hand, he went to rummage around the silver wear drawer for a fork. Bro never booby trapped that before, probably because it was such an obvious target. It already had enough sharp things in it.

Dirk felt safe enough yanking the drawer open and pawing through the contents. There were a plethora of butter knives and actual knives, but comparably fewer spoons and forks. His phone vibrated in his pocket, splitting his attention for a second, which proved to be a second too long.

His hand caught on something foreign and before he could even register that fact, something bit into three of the fingers of his right hand. He let out an abrupt pained whimper and snatched his hand back, dragging one of Bros bizarre traps with it. From the rightmost fingers on his hand dangled a mouse trap. He scrabbled at it with his left hand, but did nothing more than increase the pain and yank it down a few centimeters.

He forced himself to stop frantically pulling at it and instead took a moment to compose himself while his fingers throbbed. He swiped his left hand over his eyes, displacing his classic Strider shades momentarily. He wasn’t crying. It was just an itch.

With a little more composure, he reexamined the trap and successfully managed to reset it with one hand. He immediately stuffed his now aching, definitely bruising hand into his hoodie pocket where nothing else could exacerbate the pain. He used his uninjured hand to pick out a fork after inspecting the drawer for any other traps.

He shoved the fork into his pocket and turned around, ready to be done with the minefield that was the kitchen. The shining red light above the doorway caught his attention briefly.

Oh.

It looked like his encounter had been livestreamed to the pervs that paid Bro to observe their day to day life.

Dirk left the room. It didn’t bother him that much, not anymore. Not like it bothered Dave.

Truthfully, there was very little that bothered him these days.

* * *

Almost an hour later, Dave returned home. He’d been warned by Dirk of the surveillance in the kitchen, so he made sure to scope out the kitchen before actually entering. The faster he went, the better. Bro would get angry if he threw something over the kitchen camera.

Dave paused, considering, before turning around and picking up one of Bro’s hats. He slowly entered the kitchen and hung the hat from the camera, Bro’s fits be damned. It’s not like it was gonna matter for much longer. He entered the kitchen without impunity, reckless in his bravery.

“Dave,” Dirk called, poking his head out of the room the two of them shared. Dave exited the kitchen and caught sight of his twin. His glasses were off and he looked like he’d been napping. Which was fair, Dave thought. Dirk would have a long night tonight.

“Yeah, man?” he said, leaning against the doorframe.

“Everything go alright?” Dirk asked, rubbing at his eyes. Dave gave him a thumbs up and he looked vaguely relieved. “Good. Great. If you need me, I’m going to be unconscious.”

“I won’t,” he said confidently, reentering the kitchen. After him, Dirk yelled, “Don’t fucking jinx it.”

* * *

Dave cursed and spat a gross mix of blood and saliva onto the gravel of the rooftop, pushing himself up with arms that would _not_ stop shaking. His glasses were cracked, but Dirk still had some of that glass repair shit, so he wasn’t completely devastated over the damage to one of the most thoughtful gifts he’d ever received. Instead, he spent all of his processing power (as Dirk would call it) on survival.

Gravel crunched as his guardian – his _dad_ , though he’d never let his sons call him that – came to stand over him. Though his mind was screaming _DANGER_ his body had given up. All the willpower in the world couldn’t save him now.

“That’s it?” he asked, deceptively calm. Dave shifted and hissed in pain as his ribs screamed at him to hold still, for the love of **GOD**. A dirty shoe rested on his back, jostling the rib that _had_ to be broken, making him whine softly. Bro laughed quietly and Dave felt the pressure increase, just a bit.

Dave wondered if he was about to press down hard enough to **break** him.

But no, the pressure faded and eventually receded altogether, only to reappear in the form of a sharp kick to his bad side, making him yelp pitifully.

“Drag your sorry ass back inside, birthday boy,” he commanded, already heading for the stairs. Dave knew he was going to grab Dirk and Dave could only hope that his twin was already awake.

Bro could be sadistic when waking a person up.

* * *

“Just let me move him inside,” Dirk was saying as Dave tragically returned to consciousness. “He’s just a fucking hazard there and the neighbors will be on your ass if they find one of us passed out here again.”

“Does it look like I give a fuck? I’ll just say the two of you were having a fucking fight club,” Bro said, sounding agitated which was never a good sign. “It gets them off my back, easy.”

“We’re eighteen now,” Dirk said, braver than Dave could ever be, even through his shaking voice. “If the neighbors actually buy that, they could call the cops on us and one of us could be arrested.”

“You must not have heard me, you little shit,” Bro growled. Dave found himself holding his breath in terrified anticipation. “I asked you if _it looked like I gave a fuck_.”

* * *

Dave cast a look over towards Dirk’s bed and found his twin to be firmly unconscious, cradling his right arm gingerly. Dirk said he landed badly on it, but it would be fine.

Dave was pretty sure something was broken, possibly the arm itself.

He sighed silently, ignoring the pain, and grabbed his sunglasses from the floor beside his mattress and slid them on. It still hurt to breathe deeply, but he counted himself lucky to get away so lightly in a traditional Strider birthday strife.

Carefully, he stood and made the mistake of trying to stretch. After around five minutes he stopped wheezing shallowly and could move again. He used the power to creep to the door and ease it open, heading down the hallway to the living room. It was illuminated, but only from the television and he knew that Bro slept with it on most nights.

Well. Sleep was inaccurate.

Bro _passed out_ in front of the TV most nights. And luckily it seemed like that night was no exception, Dave judged after staring at his prone form for a few long minutes. He flashed a smile that dropped just as quickly as it came and went back to his bedroom.

Looking at Dirk again, Dave immediately decided to save waking him for last and instead scrambled to pull backpack and duffle bags from under their beds, already packed. He patiently worked their window open and dropped the bags onto the fire escape.

In a matter of minutes, Dave had nearly everything they owned and some things that were _technically_ Bro’s awaiting them on the rusted metal structure outside of their window. He pulled a pocket knife from Dirk’s backpack and used it to pry the baseboard away from the wall beside his mattress. Discarding the board (let Bro try and fix that one), Dave closed the knife and pocketed it. He pulled a small, thin cardboard box containing all the cash they had to their names out of the opening and shoved it into Dirk’s backpack.

Satisfied, he went to wake Dirk for help carrying everything down to the run-down piece of shit car they’d bought together.


	2. Chapter 2

Knowing that even the most basic healthcare would eat into their savings, the Striders stopped at an urgent care by unanimous agreement. The brothers were in a stalemate, both believing that their own injuries weren’t of note though their brother’s needed treatment.

“Your ribs could be broken,” Dirk argued, slapping the dashboard for emphasis and then letting out a strangled groan that, from a lesser man, would likely have been a scream.

“I can breathe,” Dave said levelly, eyeing his brother. “But you can barely even move your damn wrist. What the fuck is up with you? Your bones are made of glass?”

Dirk started laughing, breathily.

“I was...” he wheezed. “I was born with… glass bones… and paper skin.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Dave said, turning the music down a bit while a smile began creeping onto his own face too. “Might as well finish it, you dick.”

“Every morning, I break my legs and every afternoon, I break my arms,” he brandished his wrist mottled with dark purple bruises. He was laughing in earnest now and Dave was very sure his brother was losing it.

“At night, I lie awake in agony until my heart attacks put me to sleep,” he finished, not bothering to wait for his brother, who appeared to be lost in his odd mirth. “Yeah, man. We’re both seeing doctors like now. Like yesterday even. Hell, consider us at the doctor as we’re taking the driving tests.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dirk pointed out, trying to breathe evenly.

Dave snorted and then groaned in pain, a hand going to cup a spot on his thin ironic Pepsi t-shirt. Just underneath his careful hand was a still darkening bruise that took up the better part of his torso.

* * *

Dave spent fifteen minutes pawing through the contents of the plastic bin they’d helpfully labelled with “IMPORTANT SHIT DO NOT LOSE OR ELSE YOU’LL PROBABLY DIE LIKE FOR REAL”.

“You forgot them,” Dirk said, fury dripping off every word. Dave wished he would just go back to laughing to himself. “Goddamn it, Dave. What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

“I didn’t forget them,” he said. “Untwist your fucking panties. Shit, bro, did you dip into our escape money to try and learn Victoria’s Secret? I’ll _tell_ you Victoria’s Secret. It’s charging like twenty bucks for a scrap of frilly shit to cover your naughty bits. Her secret is turning a mad profit, bro. Now step out of the overpriced panties and put on your big boy pants.”

“Don’t panty shame me,” Dirk said. “How the fuck do you know how much Victoria’s Secret panties cost, anyway?”

Dave was quiet for a moment. He lifted a folder out of the bin and opened it, acting very interested in it all of a sudden. He muttered, “Don’t kinkshame me, bro.”

“Oh my _god_ , Dave. You could have used a million other excuses and _not_ tell me your panty kink,” Dirk groaned, pushing his sunglasses up to rub his eyes. “You could have said you were looking at the models. Fuck, you could have claimed to get them as a gift for your _totally real_ girlfriend.”

“She was real,” Dave argued. He discarded the folder and selected a binder instead. “Shut up.”

“If she were real then why couldn’t I ever talk to her?” he challenged.

“Because you’re awful and knowing you were related to me would have scared her off. Fuck, man, she’d probably take a look at your stupid gay face and turn gay too.”

“Dave, you utter buffoon,” Dirk deadpanned. “We’re _twins_ , you fucking disaster. Where the fuck are our fucking medical cards?”

Dave made a noise of a surprise and straightened from his hunch. He held a pair of medical insurance cards aloft with something close to triumph on his face.

“Finally,” Dirk said. “Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

“What if Bro catches up with us?” Dave asked levelly as they slid into their car, Dave behind the wheel as Dirk examined his shiny new wrist brace.

“Do you really think he’s going to guess which way we went?” Dirk asked. “Man, he doesn’t give a shit. And if he did, the country is a huge place. We could be anywhere as far as he’s concerned. He doesn’t even know we have this shitheap.”

“It’s a nice shitheap.”

“It smells like old cigarettes and old people,” he said. “And probably death.”

“Aww, he doesn’t mean that Marguerite,” Dave said, stroking the dashboard.

“Yes I fucking do and we’re changing the car’s damn name,” he snapped, kicking the frame moodily. “It doesn’t even fucking matter. Not like Bro’s gonna even give a damn if he notices we’re gone.”

It went without saying that the two of them were worthless as individuals to their father. All he wanted from his two legally trapped victims were strifes on demand, strict and unwavering obedience, and compelling material for his sicko audiences to watch on demand.

Honestly, Bro could pick up two homeless kids and get the same perks as he did from his sons. They were replaceable. He wouldn’t be coming for them.

After a moment of silence, Dave started the car.

* * *

“Stop picking at your damn brace,” Dave muttered without having to look over. He kept his eyes firmly on the unending and frankly boring stretch of road before them, nary a pile of roadkill to spice up the scenery. He liked trying to guess the animal, but when he tried to get Dirk involved, his twin threatened to have him committed.

Dirk shot him a dirty glare and continued undoing and redoing the Velcro straps. Dave was beginning to get antsy himself from the anxious energy rolling off his twin. He lasted another few minutes before continuing, “Fuck you, man. You’re going to make your stupid fucking wrist worse or break your stupid fucking brace. Is that what you want? Do you want to ruin the sweet piece of medically mandated gear we had to drop cash on? How’s it feel to know your jacking off wrist is going to be ruined because you fucked up your brace, huh?”

“How’s it feel to breathe, you useless fuck?” Dirk asked back cruelly. Dave rolled his eyes, giving into frustration.

“It feels way better than it does for you to drive, dickwad.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Neither do you and I still humor you.”

Dirk shot him a look and finally abandoned fiddling with his wrist brace in favor of fiddling with their shared iPod. Abruptly, the sweet jams that Dave carefully curated for their drive through the rest of Texas were replaced with what Dave would politely classify as a robot orgy. Not like, sexy robots from Dirk’s manga and shit, but like… factory machines. A metric fuckton of factory machines all getting it on with the passions of a thousand desperate housewives that just found out about 50 Shades of Domestic Abuse and wanted to spice up their sex lives with their boring, 9 to 5 working husbands that get through the act by picturing Patricia from HR.

Dirk seemed to take vindictive pleasure in Dave’s grimace.

(Privately, Dave worried about Dirk’s taste in music. It was probably the result of one too many blows to the head as a kid and young teen and teen and young adult… His hearing was actually kind of fucked up, so it really wouldn’t be a surprise if it also accounted for his incredibly shitty taste in… well, everything.

(Nothing else could explain it. Every other respectable Strider has impeccable taste.)

Dave reached over and turned down the volume while Dirk’s head began bobbing along with the noise.

* * *

Sitting on the hood of the Strider Shitheap, Dave reluctantly stripped out of his light hoodie, too discomforted by the ambient heat in the air to suffer through the sweat trap of bro fashion. He wrapped his arms around himself, refusing to look down and instead warily glaring around the nearly deserted rest area.

The last thing he wanted was someone to come over and find two sketchy teenagers alone and covered in scars. He could already see how it would play out.

Some desperate housewife type would wander off, probably meaning well or maybe just looking for the hot teen gossip. She would be too friendly right off the bat and then probably gush about how he was was just _the cutest_ and _oh that must be your brother_ and he’d just have to nod along and play up the unknowable cool kid act. Eventually she’d wise up to his tricks and inquire after his mom and dad and refuse to let the strong and silent man before her continue being silent. She’d probably get all up in his space and see the scars and

Dave shuffled around and took his bottle of prescription painkillers out of his hoodie pocket. Night had already fallen. There was only an RV in the parking lot. No one else around for miles, probably.

His ribs were hurting, but he was sure that he could handle it. Dirk had to give up and take one earlier, finally listening to his obviously much wiser twin and stopping his fiddling with his wrist brace. He swore it wouldn’t affect his ability to drive, but he’d been out cold within twenty minutes.

Then again, that could just be exhaustion.

It was tempting to pop a pill and crawl in the car, recline the seat as far as it would go, and try to join his brother in the sleep of the heavily medicated.

But it was illegal to sleep in your car at a rest area. What if a serial killer found them? What if Bro found them? Well, Dave imagined the end result of both scenarios would be much the same. But what if it was just the police that came through and roused them?

Distant clattering caught Dave’s attention. He looked over at the RV, reflexively tightening his grip on his torso. It send stabs of agony through him, but it provided a barrier between his squishy internals and the cruel, cruel world.

The door opened and someone - a woman, Dave guessed - stepped out. She looked around briefly and he was glad for his glasses, not that she could have discerned where he was looking from that distance anyway. Seemingly satisfied, she turned and put a hand to her mouth. The shrill whistle startled him only slightly more than the swarm of tiny dogs that rocketed from the RV on her signal.

The sight shocked honest emotion out of him, a small smile curving across his mouth as the woman stepped to the side of the RV and leaned against it, lighting a cigarette. His attention was captured by the pack running to and fro, never straying too far from the RV.

For obvious reasons, both of the Strider twins had never had the honor or responsibility of caring for pets. God, Dave despaired to think of what might have happened if they _did_ get a pet. But he knew their cousins kept cats and he knew a few people at school… at his old school, anyway, that had pets.

He thought that he might like a dog. Maybe he could bring it up with Dirk. Dogs liked cars, didn’t they? It would be fun. Dave let himself fantasize for a moment before reality seeped in. He didn’t know how long the road trip would last and he wasn’t about to trap an animal in a cramped car with virtual strangers. Not to mention how much a dog would cost…

Regretfully, he added dogs to the list of things his childhood lacked.

The woman, finished with her vice, let out another shrill whistle. The swarm tightened ranks and sped back to the RV. They almost seemed to levitate as they ascended the stairs with all due haste. After they were safely inside, the woman re-entered the RV and shut the door firmly behind her.

“The kind of weird shit you see on the road at night,” Dave commented to no one in particular, sliding his sunglasses off his face to rub at his eyes. It was uncomfortable even having them in his lap, but there was no one around to see and no matter what stupid fucking Bro said, only douchebags wore sunglasses at night.

He looked down at the glasses in his lap, tempted to replace them on his face. It was ingrained in him. Never, ever take them off _or else_.

_It’s because you’re weird, kid. Just leave them on or all the other kids are going to beat you up or something._

A nameless mix of rage and shame caught in his throat. He dropped his glasses on his hoodie and shoved himself up and slid off the hood with a solid thump. He took off towards the artificial, washed out light from the row of vending machines.

Standing before the veritable firing squad of sugary, diabetes causing treat dispensing machines, Dave shoved a hand in his pocket only to come up with five coins - two pennies, a nickel, and two dimes.

Not even enough for a shitty cup of vending machine coffee. Just his luck.

He clenched his fist and tried to control his breathing like Rose was always after him to do - as if oxygen could solve his deep seated emotional issues. He held his breath for a beat and then snarled, throwing the loose change at the machines as hard as he could.The coins bounced off the glass unsatisfyingly.

“Don’t be a dick to the machines,” Dirk called. Dave looked behind him to find Dirk approaching at a brisk pace. He could almost believe Dirk was actually at 100%. If only his voice didn’t just barely slur and his eyes didn’t blink too long as if struggling to open again.

“I can be a dick to whatever I want,” Dave explained. “Or whoever. This is America, home of the goddamn free.”

“But I have change.”

Dirk emptied his pockets and produced a few dollar bills and an assortment of coins. He offered it all to Dave, but his brother elected to take only what he needed before ambling over to the vending machine that was seductively whispering his name into the night.

From it, he purchased a large Kitkat bar before moseying over to the shitty coffee vending machine to eye up its wares. He settled on a tiny cappuccino and waited patiently for it to be made right before his very eyes, opening his candy bar and taking a large bite.

Though Dirk had been busy purchasing himself a bag of chips, noticed Dave’s full body cringe at the taste of the drink. Dirk straightened, leaving his bag of chips in the machine for a moment in favor of observing his brother and, once again, unstrapping and re-strapping his brace. He helpfully suggested, “Maybe you could put some of your Kitkat into the hot caffeine and flavor powder water. Like a stir stick? Might make it taste better.”

Dave, distracted by the brace shenanigans, opened his mouth to scold his twin before the advice registered. “You… wait, that’s actually not a terrible idea. Fuck, this is why I keep you around, brosef.”

“Because I’m the smarter of the two?” Dirk asked archly, finally retrieving his chips from the metal jaws of the vending machine. He watched Dave work for a moment before true horror dawned upon him.

“Wait, did you fucking bite into your Kitkit? Without breaking it into pieces?” he asked, disgust dripping from his tone as his nose scrunched up in a rare show of emotion. Dave shuffled his items enough to flip off his twin with a cheery smile. “What kind of fucking animal are you? Goddamn, Dave. This is it. I’m gonna have to take you out behind the shed and put you down. You’ve gone full rabid. Inhuman. Monstrous, even.”

In retaliation, Dave took another huge bite from the still connected amalgamation of wafer and chocolate.


	3. Chapter 3

The Striders, unwilling to pay for a hotel after shelling out for medical expenses and not willing to try their luck driving through the rest of the night, agreed that it would be best to sleep in the car. Dirk, having slept the most recently, volunteered to drive them from the rest area to the nearest Walmart. They both agreed that no Walmart employee would care overly much if there was a car in the parking lot and their car might not even be noticeable in the parking lot of a 24 hour one.

“Maybe I don’t want to sleep that close to you,” Dave challenged.

“Dave, we literally spent nine months in Mom’s womb together. Get over it.”

“Oh my _god_ . Don’t talk about Mom’s womb. Don’t even _think_ about Mom’s womb.”

“She’d be happy to know I was thinking about her at all. What are _you_ thinking about?”

“Nothing!”

“Damn it, Dave, this isn’t _Kink-sploration with the Striders_. Keep that shit to yourself for the love of GOD.”

Twenty miles down the road, Dave already mostly ensconced in dreamland, a phone rang.

Dave snapped away, sitting up abruptly and groaning at the sharp pain in his chest. He looked over to find Dirk white knuckling the steering wheel and decided to take charge of the situation. Hand going to his ribs as if he could soothe the pain from the outside, he leaned over the console between the seats and pawed through the stuff stored there.

There were two phones - identical because Bro seemed to have some kind of identicality fetish when it came to his sons - but only one was going off. There was no way to tell which, but Dave was already absolutely sure that it didn’t matter; it was Bro on the other end. He just _knew_.

He grabbed the one with the screen alit, not bothering to look at the name. His thumb hovered over the green button. He agonized a moment too long, for Dirk snatched the cellphone from him.

“What the fuck?” Dave demanded.

“If it’s Bro… I want to be the one to talk to him. I have to,” Dirk said grimly, eyes never leaving the road ahead. He frowned and said, “Go back to sleep, Dave.”

“Fuck you,” Dave raged, struggling to get his seat up from its reclined position. The seat was stuck and he was too angry to deal with it, so he defaulted to violence and punched it. He groaned at the stress it put on his ribs as Dirk shook his head. “Man, that isn’t fair.”

“Tough,” Dirk grunted, sliding his thumb across the screen to answer the call without looking at the caller ID. He was _prepared_ . He was _ready_. He was a man being led to the gallows, head held high and having made peace with his fate, but dreading the suffering he would need to endure before the end. With a remarkably steady voice, he answered. “Hello?”

“DIRK STRIDER.”

Dirk flinched hard and held the phone further from his ear. The volume made him jump and jerk the wheel, but he quickly righted the car even as Dave whined complaints.

“You absolute mega-ho!” the sharp voice from the phone greeted him, entirely unexpected. Dirk rolled his eyes. “God _damn_ , man, you haven’t been online _all day_. And you even ignored all my birthday wishes. You’re breaking my heart. Is that what you want? To break your dear best friend’s heart?”

Dirk took a breath that was suspiciously shaky. Dave stared at him warily, unsure of what was going on. After a moment, Dirk managed to find his voice, “Roxy. Oh my god, _Roxy._ You have no earthly idea how glad I am to hear your voice.”

“‘ _Earthly_ ’ idea? How about an extraterrestrially idea?” Roxy teased. “Talk to me, Di-Stri.”

“Roxy?” Dave asked. “It’s Roxy?”

“Yeah,” Dirk confirmed to him. “I guess I worried her.”

“Fuck yeah you did, jerk.”

“Listen, Rox. It’s a really long story and it’s kind of late. We, uh…” Dirk stalled out while trying to think of an excuse that didn’t involve driving. Roxy would just demand to know why she wasn’t informed that he got a license and maybe demand that he drive up to visit.

Quicker than Dirk thought his twin could move in his ailing condition, Dave reached over and snatched the phone away. Dirk let out a cry of indignant surprise while into the phone Dave said, “Yeah, hi Roxy. Yup, it’s your favorite cousin here. What my melodramatic, dumbass brother meant was that yesterday night we got a car and ran away from our dad. Today marks day one of the Strider nomadic lifestyle. I’m planning to liveblog it.”

“ _What?_

* * *

It took the remaining drive to Walmart for Dave to explain what had led up to their abrupt exit from their father’s life, not even touching on their plans for the future. Those were an entirely different can of worms in Dave’s mind. A can of worms that, perhaps, also contained wyrms. Yes, beasts of myth and legend ready to devour the. He told his mental Rose that the symbolism meant _nothing, Rose, leave me alone!_

Still, it was a glaring hole in the story that Roxy, intelligent as she was, refused to let go unfilled.

“We’re, uh…” Dave floundered for any explanation that didn’t sound entirely implausible. Unfortunately, Lalondes had an abnormally astute Strider bullshit meter. Dirk huffed impatiently, turning into the parking lot they’d been searching for. It was a 24 hour one, so he parked just further than the other cars, hoping no one would look in, but also that they would blend in.

Eventually, Dave had to settle on the truth as the judgemental silence continued too long to bear, “Man, this is going to sound insane as hell, but we’re going to find our uncle.”

“Which uncle?” she asked, not thinking about it immediately. She paused. “Wait, do you mean your movie star uncle? The one that’s like, ungodly famous?”

“That’s the one.”

“How the hell are you planning to get anywhere near him?” she asked.”

“I don’t know. We don’t know,” Dave admitted, frustration peaking. “Is that what you wanted? We don’t fucking _know_ , Roxy, but it’s better than nothing. We couldn’t stay there.”

“Wandering off into nowhere with no plan is much worse than the alternatives and you know it, dickbreath,” she scolded as Dave rolled his eyes in frustration. Dirk grabbed the phone from his brother and put his injured arm up to shield himself from retaliation, knowing his twin wouldn’t try for the phone if it meant hurting him.

“Roxy,” Dirk said.

“Dirk, you’ve gotta turn your ass around and come east,” she said at once, voice entirely too serious for comfort. “Seriously, man, this shit is crazy dangerous. You can’t just… galavant off to L.A. or someplace and like hope to run into David on the street! You can’t even walk up to his bodyguard or publicist or something because no one is going to take you seriously! Just come up to New York and live with us..”

“Dave and I talked it out and we both think this is what we should do,” Dirk tried to explain. “Yeah, we understand that we haven’t seen him since we were kids and maybe it’s impossible, but… Well, fuck, Roxy. From what we can remember, he actually gave a damn. Who the hell else is gonna do that for us?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Roxy nearly shouted, voice rising in agitation. “Maybe, uh, your _mom_?”

Dave, only having caught Roxy yelling “your mom” as he tried to eavesdrop, made a face. He looked at Dirk incredulously and asked, “Did she just make a your mom joke?”

“No,” Dirk said briefly, mouth upticking in a small smile at the thought. Dave was busy pulling the phone away to ask Roxy himself.

“Did you just drop a your mom joke? On us? Us, your cousins? Your brothers from another mother? Another mother that happens to also be your aunt? That mother?” he asked, batting Dirk’s grasping hands away. “Roxy Lalonde, I am _telling_.”

“Oh go ahead,” she pouted. “I didn’t, but you’ll never believe me.”

“ _How could you say such things about your own aunt_?”

“Actually,” she said, thoughtful. “Actually, yeah. That’s a great idea.”

“Wha- What is?” Dave asked, caught off guard.

“Being a huge tattle tale,” Roxy said. Dirk successfully rescued the phone from his twin and pressed it to his own ear again.

“Whatever you’re thinking, no,” he said.

“You both promise to turn around and get back here or I’m telling my mom. No, fuck it. I’m telling your mom.”

“Low blow,” Dirk said, already feeling guilty.

The two, by unspoken agreement, had kept the worst of the abuse from their mother. Despite the Bro enforced distance, she kept in touch and would periodically check in and make sure they were doing okay. She was disgustingly sincere and though they claimed to hate it, it was a breath of fresh air after Bro’s bullshit.

Dirk turned on speakerphone at Dave’s insistence - and who the fuck taught that boy manners because it definitely wasn’t polite to punch someone you wanted to do something for you.

“What’s going on?” he asked at once.

“Both of you are going to promise me you’ll come to New York instead. Fuck all that iffy business. If you don’t then I’m going to march my ass right downstairs to tell your mom on you.”

“What are you, five?” Dave asked.

“Okay, I hear you,” Roxy said. The Striders made identical faces of muted confusion. “I’ll start small.”

There was some feedback and then a muffled shout. Soon enough, the phone was back at Roxy’s ear. “I’m calling in reinforcements.”

Roxy put her phone on speakerphone as well.

“You called?” Rose asked and Dave shuddered.

“We won’t give in to terrorism,” Dirk said, monotone well in place.

“Oh _hello_ , cousins,” Rose greeted, false warmth dripping from her words.

* * *

“Fine,” Rose said, sounding very honestly angry. “Roxy, I take my leave. In my place you shall have our esteemed aunt.”

“Don’t do it,” Dave said just as Dirk pleaded, “Just leave her out of this.”

“You assholes left us with no choice,” Roxy huffed. “Just shut up and let your mom bail you out, okay?”

“Roxy, honey,” a very familiar voice called. “Rose said that you needed me.”

“I’m talking to Dave and Dirk,” she said. “They’re being idiots and I need you to go all mom on them.”

That made her laugh and the Striders began bracing themselves for the inevitable fallout.

“What are they doing?” she asked, clearly not sensing the impending doom the Striders were facing or the guilty silence.

“Well, they ran away from Bro in a beater car and they’re trying to go to L.A. to find their uncle,” Roxy said. “Oh, and they’re all beat up from their most recent beating from the king asshole himself.”

“ _What?_ ”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” she repeated for what had to be the millionth time. “Boys, I am so sorry.”

“Mama, it’s okay,” Dave said, staring resolutely down at his lap. The phone was resting on the console between the brothers as they reclined in their seats. Dirk was entirely reclined but Dave couldn’t find a comfortable position. Neither of them looked at each other.

“Your father was hurting you,” she said, voice breaking again. Dirk shoved his face into the ratty fabric of the seat beneath him, glasses having long been discarded. “I should have done something. I’m your mother.”

“We didn’t tell you,” Dirk said, voice remarkably even. “It isn’t your fault.”

“Oh, but it is. You’re my sons and all these years, I didn’t even… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. He never should have gotten custody. I should have never…”

The brothers could barely remember when she lived with them, but their most notable memories weren’t exactly good ones. It was long before she cleaned up her act and got sober. After she did, she was a lot more pleasant to be around. It was just a shame that Bro had already gotten custody of their sons and everyone told her that it was best for them to stay with their father.

“I love you,” Dave admitted in the darkness of the car. It was hushed and by unspoken agreement, both Striders did away with all pretenses. “But Mama, you couldn’t have known.”

“You weren’t our legal guardian,” Dirk pointed out. “Legally, it wasn’t your job to look out for us. It was Bro’s.”

“Fuck the law,” she said. “The both of you are still my babies. Oh hell, I knew he wasn’t a good person, but… I didn’t think it was… I’m sorry, boys.”

“It’s okay,” Dave reaffirmed. “Just forget all that. It’s over now.”

“Except now you’re _homeless_ ,” she reminded them. “You said you’re planning on trying to find Dane?”

“Yeah,” Dirk answered. Dave carefully didn’t see how his twin wiped his eyes. “We’re headed out that way and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

“Did I ever say I wanted to stop you?” their mother asked, sad, but almost teasingly. “If this isn’t where you want to be-”

“That’s not it,” Dave interrupted. “It’s just…”

“Shh, baby,” she hushed. “This isn’t where you want to be. Not right now. But my home is _always_ open to you and… from now on I’m here for you no matter what. I promise.”

“We’re the ones that kept it from you,” Dirk reminded her.

“It was our fault.”

“You’re sweet, both of you. But I should have done better and I won’t hear another word about that!”

They longed to argue, but both of them respected their mother too much to.

“It’s getting late,” she said. “I’m not going to make you come to me, but I _am_ going to make you promise to be safe. And after we get off the phone, one of you needs to message me your bank details. I’ll be sending you money.”

“We have a lot saved up,” Dave said. “We can make it, Mama. We promise.”

“I don’t care,” she said patiently. “I can’t be there to take you to your uncle myself since the two of you are clearly making a _journey_ of it. But there’s no way in hell I’m letting you go on without support. I don’t want you just scraping by or running into unexpected expenses and panicking.”

“I planned it all out,” Dirk said, almost sounding disgruntled. “Ma, I was careful. You know me.”

“Yes I do,” she said, letting out a small laugh. “And you would miss the nose on your face if your eyes weren’t on it at all times.”

“ _Mama_.”

“True,” Dave crowed.

“Dirk,” she answered. “Honey, you’re very smart and I’m very proud of you, but sometimes you can be a little obtuse.”

“Why would you say that…?”

“It’s true,” Dave said again, clearly ready to mock his brother relentlessly.

“Dave, it isn’t like you’re much better,” their mother reminded him. “You’re distracted at the drop of a hat. Sometimes _by_ the drop of a hat. Neither of you are better than the other and I’m trusting that you’ll look out for each other.”

Dirk and Dave looked at one another, locking eyes in the dim cabin. Tentatively, they nodded.

“We can do that,” Dirk said.

“Yeah,” Dave agreed. “I mean if we can’t take care of ourselves what even was the point of running away to L.A. to a man who we might never get a chance to meet anyway. Right?”

“Don’t make me regret trusting you,” their mom sang. “Goodnight, boys. Send me those bank details or I _will_ come after you.”

“Goodnight, Mama.”


End file.
